Immanuel Lutheran Church - Benson

“The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.”
Proverbs 11:3

Okay, I have to admit, I love the book of Proverbs.

Traditionally, it was written by King Solomon, noted for his wisdom.  The book of Proverbs is mostly a list of rather random statements like the one above, with little to no connection between them.  But what they are are statements, suggestions, rules, and observations about the way of the world, and how the faithful are to live. 

I love this book because I’m such a big fan of this style of writing, where each statement is called an aphorism.  Many philosophers have taken this style, which is always intriguing to me.  The aphorism doesn’t tell you everything.  It’s not a long explanation for why to do such-and-such, or why to not act in one way or another.  The aphorism simply states what the author wants to say, and leaves the details up to your own imagination and your own experimentation. 

And so it is with this Proverb.  We are taught that integrity is the guide of upright people, but duplicity will be the downfall of those who fall into that trap. 

Honestly, this statement reminds me a lot of one of my favorite books, Friedrich Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human.  This book, in the aphoristic format just like the book of Proverbs, speaks about what it means to be a human being in this world.  It is an interesting book, written as a social, religious, and philosophical critique by the son of a Lutheran pastor, and I first read it in college, and have read it at least once a year ever since.

Reading this aphorism reminds me also of the twelve points of the Boy Scout Law, which amazingly I still remember (A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.)  Honest may not be among those twelve adjectives I had to memorize so long ago, but the intention is there. 

Honesty and integrity were drilled into me ever since I can remember, from my parents, my scout masters, my teachers at school, and my pastors.  And I know some of you might be wondering if those things are still being taught.  After all, we keep hearing about all the bad things going on in our world, it’s not surprise that we wonder whether anyone still has any integrity. 

But I am sure that most of our children are still learning this important lesson, and we are still teaching this to our children.  We are just teaching this in a time of dramatic change for all of us, where privacy has become more important than integrity. 

After all, integrity is exemplified best by what you do when no one is watching.  A lot of times, what we teach our children is akin to the “Do what I say, not what I do” cliche, and then our children fail to learn integrity.  What they learn is that it’s okay to do whatever they want as long as they don’t get caught. 

Getting caught, however, is the least of our problems when we live a life of duplicity.  The problems we face are to our hearts, our minds, and our souls, and what kind of monster living that kind of life turns us into.  If we have integrity, we will never have to tell our children to “Do what I say, not what I do.”  We may never be perfect, but we will admit that to our children.  We will not try to defend our trespasses, or try to excuse them.  A person with integrity takes the blame, asks for forgiveness, and receives that forgiveness with an open heart.

I just realized I’ve gone on for quite a bit about teaching children.  Hmm, I guess we see what’s been on my mind lately.  But the fact remains that our children will not learn faithful living from anywhere else but us.  If we do not teach them, like Solomon who wrote this whole book of Proverbs as instructions, then they will not learn to be faithful adults, and will not teach their future children.

It has been said that Christianity is always one generation away from extinction.  And that is, at least, partially true.  One generation must always pass on the teachings of the faithful to the next generations.  And we hold that mission as a sacred, God-given trust to pass on the Christian heritage, and specifically our Lutheran heritage, on to our young, so that they may grow older recognizing all the beauty and wonder that God has given us, and are upright citizens of both the Right- and the Left-Hand Kingdoms.

So, when the next opportunity arises to teach Sunday School, help with a youth group, or teach your own children, take the chance!  Do your best!  Be upright, have integrity, and teach our young to love the Lord with all their hearts, and to love their neighbors as themselves.  Taking that opportunity now will shape the future of this world more than anything else you could do.  Reach out and take it - God has given you all you need!

“In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”
Psalm 5:3

Now, I am not a morning person.  I used to be.  But not anymore.  I would prefer to stay up late, and sleep in until mid-morning at least.  But life moves so much quicker than that, so I find myself most winter mornings here waking up before the sun has crested the horizon.

But no matter when you wake up, there is a right way to start the day, and a wrong way.  We’ve all heard that remark (usually when we’re having a bad day): so-and-so “must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Well, there’s only one side of the bed that I can get up from, so it’s not the bed’s fault.  But there is a wrong way to start our days, and I think that this is usually the way most people start.  We wake up after not getting enough sleep (about 7.5 hours), and we wake up in the wrong place in our dream-cycle (about every 90 minutes).  That quick, startling wake up doesn’t leave us in the best of moods.

But then we’re awake, and usually our minds bombard us with all the small, pointless things we must accomplish over the next 16 or so hours.  We don’t even get a break.  So we slog our way through our morning routine, and try to prepare ourselves for another unfulfilling day.

We then usually ingest a large amount of food that is probably very unhealthy for us (coffee, soda, sugary cereal, etc.) and hope that we have sustained ourselves until lunch time.

If this sounds like your morning, you are not alone.  So many people struggle with mornings, with motivation, with care for themselves.

Psalm 5 gives us a different way of starting the day.  In the morning, we do not start by being concerned about ourselves, but we start our morning in conversation with God.  In that conversation, we give our concerns, our worries, and our requests into our God’s wonderful hands.

Wouldn’t this be a change from our usual daily grind?  We no longer would have to try and find meaning in the meaningless activities that fill our days, but we would find our meaning firmly in the love of God for us and for all the people that we interact with on a daily basis.  No more would our lives be judged according to what we have done, but our business lives would be rated by how many we have helped.

Martin Luther, in his Small Catechism, wrote this morning prayer so that we could start our day in this way:

“We give thanks to you, heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ your dear Son, that you have protected us through the night from all danger and harm.  We ask you to preserve and keep us, this day also, from all sin and evil, that in all our thoughts, words, and deeds we may serve and please you.  Into your hands we commend our bodies and souls and all that is ours.  Let your holy angels have charge of us, that the wicked one have no power over us.  Amen.”

This prayer encapsualtes the intention of the psalmist, that all we have for this day we give to God, and we let God be the start of our day. 

So I commend Luther’s morning prayer to you, to use daily in hopes that God changes your life from the monotony of daily existence to a vibrant, blessed life. 

Pr. Bryan

“Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”
1 Corinthians 1:10

It seems almost too easy to make divisions.  We separate ourselves using any and all criteria we can find.  Politically, we make antagonists of each other: Republicans versus Democrats; Conservatives verus Liberals.  We define who we are by our nationality, either current or historic, because those who are descended from German Lutherans must keep themselves different from Swedish Lutherans. 

We even make these divisions within the church;  Some people attend early service, others attend later service.

When we make these divisions, we usually do so as if one group was inherently better than the other.    We still carry that tendency to make tribes like our ancient ancestors, who lived tribal lives and survived by having in-groups and out-groups.  But now, revealed to us through the words of the apostle Paul, we find that human tendency to be an agent of sin.

Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians is, in effect, one long argument showing a better way to live, a Godly way to live, in the new world after Jesus brought forth the Kingdom.  Paul has received a letter from the church in Corinth, through his friend Chloe, letting him know that there are divisions in the church based on which apostle baptized which group (1 Cor 1:11-12).  This is the reason for this letter, which holds some of the most beautiful language in all of Christian history (especially chapters 12-14).

But Paul’s basic argument is that only by standing together do we survive.  When we make our differences our excuses, and divide ourselves, we will topple and fall.  United we stand, divided we fall, as Aesop’s fables tell us. 

Now, Paul’s remarks do not mean that we cannot ever disagree.  In fact, healthy disagreement is necessary for the growth and movement of groups and institutions.  As a church, we need to discuss issues and be free to disagree, so that we might arrive at an even better unity.  

Too often, however, we find that our disagreements, which should unite us even more, give us an excuse to divide us.  But we cannot risk being divided in our world, which is desperately in need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.  And that is the purpose of our unity.  This is not just idle, ”feeling good about ourselves, happy to be friends with everyone” unity.  This is unity for the one purpose that we have all been called - to spread the message of the Kingdom of God come into the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We now live in a world where sins are forgiven, lives are renewed, hope is treasured, and God’s Holy Spirit blows through us, fueling us to ever greater miracles.  But when we cut ourselves off from one another, we are cutting ourselves off from our leg, or our arm.  We are hampering our usefulness to God and to one another by making divisions among us.

What this world needs, and what we need, is no more divisions.  We don’t need to maintain our ethnic groups, our nationalities, or even our normal worship times define us as against any one else.  What this world needs is Christians who truly believe and act out of the unity that our baptism brings about.  This world is craving for honest, truth-loving people to band together and show the rest of the world what it looks like to really get along.

Our mortal existence is too short to allow our differences divide us.  And how can we intentionally ignore the miracle that God has bestowed upon us - the miracle of unity in the Holy Spirit.  There is no other source and no other means to the unity that we need and the world craves but through the miracle of the Holy Spirit. 

Pray for this unity.  Pray for forgiveness for all the ways that we divide ourselves from each other.  And above all, pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to work through all of us, for God’s own purposes, not our own.

Thanks be to God!
Pastor Bryan